DARK HOURS
Chapter 5
Kayge
stared in horror as the dragon lifted its face, extending its neck so that the
bulge could slide from its throat into its gullet. His mind continued to deny
what his eyes were witnessing, even though his heart knew it for the truth. He
threw a hand out toward the creature as it continued to undulate its neck,
forcing Emers’ body downward.
“Nooo!”
He
tried to get to his feet, but his body wouldn’t obey. Helpless, he watched the
dragon make one last effort to swallow. The swelling in its throat finally
dropped, and the creature opened its mouth to belch.
“No!
No, no!” He managed to turn onto his side but his muscles remained
rubbery and weak. Useless. Rolling onto his face against the cold packed earth,
Kayge fought not to cry as his body refused to obey. “Get up, damn you! Get
up!”
A
hawking sound caught his attention. It was a sound he’d heard many times before,
but not from a winged beast. Opening his eyes, he watched the thing hunch over
until its chin rested on the ground. Its stomach heaved, and the thought that
it might be trying to regurgitate Emers flashed through his mind.
Struggling,
Kayge somehow managed to turn onto his side. The dragon made several more hard
coughing noises, when its jaws spread open as far as they could. A mass of
something poured onto the dirt. Something grayish that shimmered in the
sunlight. Something hard that fell in lumps.
He
eyed the vomit, searching for sign of Emers’ body. For something that resembled
an arm or a leg. The mass had none of it.
Glancing
back at the thing, he saw the creature staring at him with one eye, and he’d
swear he saw a smile peel back a portion of the dragon’s mouth.
“You
fiend! You abomination!”
He
knew if the dragon could laugh, it would have. It seemed to be taunting him
with its cruelty. Delighting in his misery.
“This
is not over!” Kayge swore to it. “I will kill you! I will slit your throat and
bathe in your blood!”
The
animal took a few steps back, then turned and leaped into the sky. Knowing that
all he could do was watch it fly away, Kayge kept his eyes on the thing. As it
banked and came back around, an eerie voice came from overhead. A voice he
thought he recognized, except this one was high-pitched and raspy.
Follow
me!
Kayge
gulped. He’d never heard of a dragon that could speak. Roar, yes. Bellow and
howl as they normally do. But never speak a language.
Follow!
It swooped over him, almost sweeping the
tips of its leathery wings across his skin. It gave him one more steely glare with
its crimson eyes, then straightened and took off. Taking a direct path…
Kayge doublechecked
its flight path. If it continued in that direction, it was heading toward…
Toward Noranye.
As incredible as it seemed, Kayge would
swear the dragon wanted him to follow it back to Noranye.
He gritted his teeth.
“Aye, I will follow you back to that cursed town! I will follow you anywhere
you want me to go, if only to avenge my beloved Emers. To make you pay!” he yelled at the departing creature.
Kayge groaned
loudly. His arms were twisted in an unnatural position beneath his body, and
little stilettoes of pain were slicing up and down his muscles to let him know
they were about to fall asleep on him. After much effort, he dragged himself
into a semi-sitting position as his mind fumbled about blindly, trying to grasp
every sliver of reality.
A sudden gust of
wind wrapped him in a grip of ice. His knee-jerk reaction was to draw his limbs
against his body to try and preserve heat. It was then he realized he was
completely naked and covered in some kind of slimy substance.
“What…”
He blinked. His
mind still felt groggy, as if he’d spent the night drinking and had fallen
asleep in the arms of Bacchus. The inside of his mouth felt incredibly filthy,
his tongue like a lump of clay. He ran a hand over his face to try and rub some
sensation back into it. A slow thread of shock wove through him when he saw the
smear of blood on his palm. Another swipe over his mouth, and more blood came
away at his touch. Blood mixed with that clear, gel-like…
Phlegm, his
brain informed him. It’s dragon phlegm.
Whirling around,
he stared at the mounds of what the thing had vomited.
“I was vomited
up,” he said aloud, if only to hear himself voice the truth. “I was vomited up
so it…” The next part was like a dagger to the heart. “It vomited me up to make
room for my Emers.”
Lifting his face
to the sky, he screamed her name. Venting his pain and despair until his voice
was no longer his own. Only then did he allow himself to rest until he was able
to perform his next task.
He faced another
struggle before he was able to get on his feet. Despite the blasts of frigid
air trying to knock him over, Kayge’s soldier instincts and training took over.
For the moment he was unmindful of the weather.
The day had been
born not too long ago. The sun had already cleared the distant mountain peaks
and was now ascending higher in the sky. A quick check in the direction where
the dragon had gone showed no sign of the thing, but Kayge knew he hadn’t
dreamt it. The fact that he was here in the condition he was in, and Emers was
gone, was proof he hadn’t imagined the encounter.
In all
directions he could see gently rolling hills that, in the warmer months, would
have been covered with hay or grain crops. Now they were only stubbled fields.
Barren but for the occasional tree or large rocky cluster.
A sound from
behind him made him whirl around in a crouching position. Immediately he felt a
flood of relief. A small fire was burning itself out. The sound of charred logs
falling over the embers was what had alerted him.
He paused,
locking onto a nearby dark red object. He recognized it as a cloak, his woolen
cloak lying across a fallen log, as if the person who had been wearing it had tossed
it there and forgotten about it. Glancing around, Kayge saw that he was alone.
Just as Emers had been alone.
But where was
here? Where was this place?
Another gust of
wind made his muscles spasm from the cold. Kayge went to retrieve the cloak. As
he passed by the mound of vomitus, he nearly tripped over a pair of boots lying
nearby.
“By the saints!”
Examining the
mucus-covered remains more closely, he identified his uniform, his chain mail,
and his armor. Vaguely, he recalled Emers wearing his clothing, but it hadn’t
imprinted on his brain during his initial awakening. Now he could tell that,
although the dragon had swallowed her whole, it had been forced to regurgitate
that which wasn’t flesh.
The objects were
sticky from the drying slime, but he had no choice if he wanted to keep from
freezing to death. He winced as he noticed parts of his uniform were still
warm—either from Emers’s body or from the dragon’s. It didn’t matter.
Once he was
dressed, Kayge wrapped himself in the cloak for warmth and reached for the
boots. They weren’t his, nor were they Emers’s, making him wonder who they
belonged to. They were a tight fit, even after pulling out the bundles of dried
grass stuffed inside them. But they would do until he could find more suitable
ones to wear.
A sudden fit of
coughing overtook him. Kayge tried to muffle the sound, but his throat felt
like he’d swallowed sand. From the corner of his eye, he could see what looked
like a water skin lying near the dying campfire a few meters away. Quickly he
strode over and grabbed it. The skin was half-full. The water was cold and
tasted better than anything he could remember. It also washed away the
remaining threads of bile from his throat. Wiping his hand across his mouth,
Kayge glanced around.
The horses were
nowhere to be seen. He fleetingly wondered if the dragon had consumed them as
well. At the thought of the creature, Kayge turned to face the route the
creature had taken, and fierce determination strengthened him. Almost at the
same time, that eerie voice whispered in his ear.
Come
find me! Emers needs you!
He shuddered. Emers needed him? “She needs me? Does
that mean she is not dead? Does that mean she still lives?”
He was answered
with the ghost of more maniacal cackling.
You
are alive, are you not?
The truth gripped him with icy talons. The dragon had
swallowed him! The dragon had consumed him the same way it consumed Emers,
except it didn’t have enough room for the both of them. It made sense now. It
had vomited him up to make room for her.
But
why? Why make the switch?
“Emers.
My beautiful Emers. If there is the slightest chance you are still alive…”
Iron
resolve sent heat through his body, strengthening his bones and muscles, and
giving him the clarity he needed.
“I
am coming for you, you beast from Hell! I am coming for you, and I will relieve
you of my Emers even if I have to shove my arm down your cursed throat and pull
her out myself!” He shook his fist at the horizon. “I am coming for you! Do you
hear me? I am coming for you!”
